Luke9chapter 9

Antipas's puzzlement, which Luke records, is the reaction of a ruler who has already killed one preacher and hears the reports starting again. Josephus confirms that Antipas executed John and says many Jews read his later military defeat as judgement for it.

The feeding takes place in open country near Bethsaida, a town whose exact site is still disputed among archaeologists — two mounds near the Jordan's mouth have both been argued for. Luke's count of about five thousand men follows the ordinary practice of numbering the men, so the actual crowd was larger.

The mountain scene has Moses and Elijah speaking with him about his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem — the Greek word is exodus. Luke alone records the subject of that conversation, and it points the rest of the book.

The refusal at the Samaritan village rests on a long feud. Samaritans worshipped on Mount Gerizim rather than in Jerusalem, and their temple there had been destroyed by a Jewish ruler in the second century BC. Josephus records Samaritans attacking Galilean pilgrims travelling through to the feasts. A group visibly headed for Jerusalem could expect no welcome.